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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28454073">Stasis State</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caeslin/pseuds/Caeslin'>Caeslin</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Homestuck</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Earth C (Homestuck), Implied/Referenced Infidelity, Implied/Referenced Suicide attempt, Incest Smarm, Intimacy, M/M, epilogue inspired but not epilogue compliant</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 22:55:18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,040</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28454073</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caeslin/pseuds/Caeslin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Some days it's just easier, hanging out with Dirk.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dave Strider/Dirk Strider</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>41</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Stasis State</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>
  <i>Glover positioned his straw hat, poised for departure. “In another universe,” he said, “there might be a doppelgänger Donald who wears a cowboy hat. But I’ve decided to experience the loop in this form. It’s a very complex level of energy compared to a giraffe, or a metal alloy. I do think I’ll go back to a stasis state at some point, and it might not be that long from now.” He went on, reassuringly, “I wouldn’t want anyone to feel bad. It’ll be like I was at a big party, and everyone’s enjoying themselves, wandering around—and suddenly you all start going, ‘Where’s Donald?’ ” He acted out the concerned partygoers: “ ‘Where’d he go?’ ‘I saw him, I talked to him!’ ‘He was just here a little while ago!’ ” And then the collective shrug: “ ‘Oh, well, I guess he slipped out.’ ”  </i>
</p>
<p>- <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/03/05/donald-glover-cant-save-you">Dave Strider, "Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff: The Memeoir"</a></p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Dave’s skin is sticky from sweat as he lifts his hand to knock on Dirk’s door. His ears tell him he’s in jungle safari land but the way his shirt clings to his back is pure Houston, and he wonders for the dozenth time if Striders have a genetic predisposition to living in the armpit of the sun or if paradox space just likes making him sweat. </p>
<p>It’s never going to stop feeling disorienting that they have the same apartment, and that he’s effectively waiting to be let inside his own room. He could lie and say that this deja vu is what stays his hand. Fortunately for him, Dirk must have some kind of spycam installed, because he’s opened the door before Dave can force his knuckles to actually make contact with the wood. Armored in sunglasses and a familiar deadpan expression, he looks as maddeningly inscrutable as ever. </p>
<p>The part of Dave that spent every waking second of his formative years looking for Bro out of the corner of his eye locks up, just like always, and it’s up to the rest of him to soothe it, just like always. End to end it takes maybe three seconds before he’s able to nod at Dirk and say, “‘Sup.”</p>
<p>Dirk’s eyes dart to the pretext for this particular visit, which is tucked under Dave’s arm. His eyebrows raise.</p>
<p>“That was fast,” he says.</p>
<p>“What can I say? Your latest blew my mind. I wanted to sit with it, let it marinate a little, but the muses were like, ‘hell no, strap yourself in, we are ollying the fuck up this railing. We’re gonna grind all the way down this masterpiece, do a little lip trick to top it off.’ You know how it is.”</p>
<p>Dirk nods, understanding the sentiment if not the real-world context of his choice skating metaphors. It’s been maybe six months since they began the collaborative opus known only as “untitled santa flim,” and at this point their rhythm is pretty locked in. Dirk originally proposed telling the story with smuppets, a suggestion which Dave immediately vetoed, so instead the protagonist of the video is one of Dirk’s fancy Santas. The way it works is that one of them will make a minute of footage, and then they’ll pass both video and Santa to the other, who will add on the next minute, and so on. They’re almost thirty minutes into the story now and so far Santa has taken a nap, gotten high, eaten a leaf, engaged in three successively high-stakes rap battles with the appliances in Dirk’s apartment, nearly been eaten by Terezi, and stared at the camera in total stillness for five uninterrupted minutes.</p>
<p>He hands both Santa and USB over. Dirk accepts them with grave reverence.</p>
<p>The parcel has been delivered. A duty, fulfilled. A brother, verified alive and breathing. Dave shifts on the balls of his feet.</p>
<p>“You want to come in? I was just chilling.”</p>
<p>He nods a little too eagerly. “Yeah, sure.”</p>
<p>The interior of Dirk’s apartment hums with the sound of electronics. They make the whole room feel alive, and not in the creepy way Dave’s place felt growing up smothered by plush puppet ass and the bottomless eyes of a thousand digital cameras. </p>
<p>“You want something to drink?” Dirk says, walking into the kitchenette.</p>
<p>“Sure,” Dave says, resisting the urge to follow him over there like a clingy weirdo. “You have Orange Crush? That’s my favorite.” Last time he was here, he said Tang was his favorite. It’s his secret goal to rotate through Dirk’s entire orange soda selection before Dirk notices.</p>
<p>Dirk’s couch looks beat up, but Dave knows from past experience that it’s the comfiest place in the apartment to sit. It has these person-sized depressions that are perfect to sink into and make it impossible to sit up straight. To park himself there would be an act of commitment. </p>
<p>By the time Dirk comes back out with two orange crushes he’s up to his chest in sofa. From his luxurious cushion prison, he accepts one glass from Dirk. It’s topped up with ice cubes and even has a sprig of mint bobbing on top. Classy as hell.</p>
<p>The springs groan as Dirk sits down on the other side of the couch. The added weight makes Dave’s cushion start tilting inwards. He quickly shifts to recline against the armrest, knees up, so that he doesn’t unbalance his drink.</p>
<p>“Cheers,” he says in his best fake British accent, realizing only after the word has left his mouth what a colossal dork he’s being. But he doesn’t take it back; that would be even more uncool than saying it at all. </p>
<p>“Cheers,” Dirk repeats solemnly, raising his glass to Dave’s in an air salute.</p>
<p>They sip their sodas. The mint doesn’t actually go that well with the artificial orange flavor, but that just makes it more brilliant, somehow.</p>
<p>As the seconds tick by, a comfortable silence unfolds. Or is it an awkward silence? Some days Dave thinks he can tell the difference, but on others it’s like Dirk’s door is the portal to another galaxy and the Dave who was supposed to make the interstellar leap, the one who’s actually studied all the alien rules and rituals and junk, ducked out at the last minute without giving him any notes. He guesses that’s an ironic analogy, given the actual aliens he’s running a kingdom with. But that’s the thing about Karkat: unlike Dirk, he likes to talk about his feelings. He’s also never sent Dave a suicide note.</p>
<p><i>Don’t think about the suicide note</i>, he reminds himself. Just then, as if triggered by the cursed thought, his phone vibrates. Rose’s name is on the display.</p>
<p>After a moment of internal debate, he drags the message into a folder with the dozens of other unread e-mails he’s been accumulating like the world’s shittiest crow. He’s told himself for the past two months that he’ll get around to opening them when he has the energy to think up real responses, but at this point there doesn’t seem to be a response sufficient to explain two months of silence.</p>
<p>When he looks up, Dirk is watching him.</p>
<p>Dave doesn’t want to unload any of this shit on him, and instead says, “How badly did we screw up on the universe creation thing if our new world still has spam mail?”</p>
<p>“Maybe it’s not spam,” Dirk says. “Maybe there’s a carapacian out there that earnestly wants to teach you three quick and easy ways to enhance your package.”</p>
<p>“Oh shit, you’re right. That would also explain the spelling errors.”</p>
<p>“The fact that you call them ‘errors’ is really sapiocentric. It’s their culture, Dave.”</p>
<p>“Those little claws,” Dave says, shaking his head. Dirk smirks, and the tightness in his chest loosens. </p>
<p>They both turn back to the TV, which is turned to some sort of documentary. It’s very mechanical, with hammers and blowtorches and stuff.</p>
<p><i>You were hanging out like this just a few days before he tried to off himself,</i> Dave’s brain pipes up, unhelpfully. He tries not to think too much about that afternoon, which is about as much use as attempting to make himself confront the brambly wilds of his inbox. Even now, and it’s been months since he frantically transportalized in here to snatch that noose out of Dirk’s hand, he can quote embarrassingly large chunks of the letter from memory. </p>
<p>
  <i>In retrospect, it’s obvious that my splinters were pulling the strings. I’ve known for some time that they wanted me in the alpha timeline but until recently I didn’t know why. I was on the wrong frequency without even knowing it -- maybe we all are; it would explain the interference. Now that it’s clear we’re looping, I have no choice but to abandon this “script” before it gets reduced to a mess of tangible symbols .... </i>
</p>
<p>It would have been one thing if it was a normal note. If it had just read <i>I’m depressed, Dave. All the days in this postgame paradise are running together and I feel like I have nothing left to live for</i>, he could have coped. But he has no goddamn idea what half the stuff in Dirk’s message was supposed to mean. He sometimes gets the morbid compulsion to follow up on it all, like: <i>so, gotten any more transmissions from the narrator lately? still planning to hop frequencies? is there any way I can maybe make you not want to do that?</i></p>
<p>Dirk went right back to normal afterwards; to look at him, it might as well not have happened. At the time, Dave figured maybe normal was what he needed, and they’ve never talked about the incident since. But sometimes there’s this tension in the air, a tightness in Dave’s chest like there’s a bomb planted there, and it feels like both of them can see it and Dirk is just waiting for him to bring it up.</p>
<p>One thing that would definitely not be normal is getting up leaving before he’s finished his soda, though. So Dave keeps drinking and turns his attention back to the TV. </p>
<p>Now that he’s actually watching it, it doesn’t appear to be a documentary after all; instead, it’s like some sort of instructional video. For the first time he listens to what the presenter is saying, at which point all thoughts of mortality are driven from his head.</p>
<p>“Dude,” he asks. “What’s this video called?”</p>
<p>“’How to peen your katana.’“ Dirk’s deadpan is flawless.</p>
<p>“How to <i>what</i> your katana?”</p>
<p>“Peen. You know, as in shot peening, laser peening, heavy peening. The application of force to work-harden a surface. I think this kind is hammer peening, technically.”</p>
<p>“They can’t call it that for real. That’s gotta be a word they made up to troll people.”</p>
<p>“I assure you, it’s a legit technical term. Just listen to the announcer. Listen to how serious he’s being.” </p>
<p>“... <i>just keep gently peening the tang until it fills the hole. Then, grab your sander</i> ....” </p>
<p>“No fucking way, dude. I refuse to believe you actually watch this video in your free time. You flashstepped it into the VCR specifically to mess with me, didn’t you?”</p>
<p>“I’d never do that,” says Dirk. “I genuinely love peening. It’s an -- an important process,” he says, his mouth wobbling, “a really important process in the art of crafting a fine blade ....”</p>
<p>Just a few seconds more and Dave might have out-stoic-ed his ectobro for once, but it’s no good; at the words ‘fine blade,’ he absolutely loses it. His shoulders shake as he wipes tears of laughter from his eyes, and that makes Dirk start laughing too, and then there’s just no stopping the cascade of their collective mirth. </p>
<p>When Dave collects himself at last, he realizes his soda is all gone. Heaving himself out of the dent that at this point has perfectly molded to his frame, he sets the empty glass on Dirk’s coffee table. From here, the spot where he was just sitting seems awfully far away.</p>
<p>Dirk, on the other hand, is close enough to touch. It would probably be weird to sit shoulder-to-shoulder with him, too outright tender to plausibly pass off as accidental; but jumping away would be kind of shitty, too, like he was trying to sit as far from Dirk as humanly possible. That’s the opposite of what Dave wants. He eventually settles on turning his body away from Dirk and nonchalantly swinging his legs up onto the armrest, before letting himself lean back a little bit, still looking at the ceiling, so that he’s keeping his weight mostly on the back of the couch, but a little on Dirk’s shoulder too. </p>
<p>Of course this makes it impossible to see the TV. It’s hella comfy, though, and the video is almost funnier without being able to see it because every so often they’ll introduce some absolutely bullshit term like ‘buttcap’ that sets him off laughing again. Dirk periodically chuckles too, silently, so that Dave wouldn’t know it at all if he couldn’t feel the vibration of Dirk’s shoulders shaking against his own.</p>
<p>After a few minutes, it’s pretty clear Dirk isn’t going to shove him off. Dave leans his head more fully on his shoulder. He can feel the familiar impulse to apologize for how gay he’s being bubbling up inside him, but he bites down on it, not just because he knows it’s generally a shitty thing to say but because Dirk is actually gay, and that makes it feel too much like the truth. There was one time Dirk was giving him a shoulder rub and Dave cracked a joke on autopilot about wandering hands, and Dirk just stopped.</p>
<p>Like this, he can hear Dirk breathing. The cotton of Dirk’s shirt is damp from the humidity; Dave can feel his own back is, too. They sort of stick together, which should feel gross, but is instead oddly grounding. Another thing about the heat is how he can smell Dirk -- not in a bad way, he’s as religious about showering as ever, but a warm, alive sort of scent, like the way sun smells when it hits the asphalt.</p>
<p>The only problem with this position is that Dirk is actually pretty bony as far as pillows go. Just when Dave’s about to shift, it’s like Dirk can tell what he’s thinking; he opens up his posture so that for a second Dave’s head is against his chest, and then Dave finds himself being gently lowered into Dirk’s lap.</p>
<p><i>Cool</i>, he tells himself as his heart trills like that of a girl in a romcom. He didn’t need to know that his brain reacts the exact same way to being lap-pillowed by his ectobiological father as it did when he was in this same tableau with the alien he is -- or was, maybe, god if he knows anymore -- dating.</p>
<p>It’s so easy, is the thing. It feels like they’ve known each other all their lives. That was the scariest part of that incident, even beyond the space-age gibberish: just the idea that Dave could have a friend who felt like the long-lost twin he never had, a guy he felt utterly in sync with, and then wake up one day to find him five seconds from gone. </p>
<p>Dave shivers as he feels Dirk’s fingers brush his jawbone. Dirk is watching the screen again, but his hand is moving on its own, tracing Dave’s jaw and then the side of his neck in a seemingly unconscious gesture. Dave is warm all over. He’s never been more glad to be wearing his shades.</p>
<p>All of a sudden light flashes outside, and then comes a booming crack, followed by the sound of rain. Dirk’s knee stiffens under him. </p>
<p>“Should I move?” Dave asks.</p>
<p>Dirk nods. “Just gotta unplug things.”</p>
<p>Dave sits up, feeling a little lightheaded as the blood rushes back to his brain. He watches as Dirk zips around yanking various cords out of the wall. The rain sounds like it’s really coming down, a proper flash flood, but in here even the thunder is muffled, just like all those summer storms Dave remembers growing up. Dave pictures how it must look in this other biome, bouncing off the leaves of all that greenery, soaking the soil. He imagines it making a sort of curtain around the apartment.</p>
<p>Dirk comes back. He sits back next to Dave -- right next to him, this time, their knees in parallel. Even this close, Dave can’t actually see his eyes through his shades, but he can tell anyway that Dirk is looking straight at him.</p>
<p>Right now it feels like anything could happen and none of it would leave this room. He meets Dirk’s gaze with a perfect poker face. Dirk returns it, cool as stone. He doesn’t even flinch as Dave reaches up to cup his cheek.</p>
<p>Dirk’s skin is warm against his palm. Dave could just pull away now, but that would be counter to the spirit of gay chicken. Instead, he removes Dirk’s shades. Dirk’s amber eyes blink at him; he has deceptively long eyelashes. Dave can see a little bit of Rose in his bone structure. His stomach flutters, a little bit.</p>
<p>He takes his own shades off while he’s at it. The brightness of the world goes up a few notches.</p>
<p>If Dirk moves away, he’ll back off, he tells himself. When he leans in, though, Dirk is as still as a panther. It’s way easier than it should be to kiss him.</p>
<p>Dirk’s lips feel like plush velvet. For the first few kisses Dave just appreciates the softness of them, hardly daring to do anything more than breathe against his mouth. Then they shift -- Dirk’s hand coming up to cup the back of Dave’s neck, and Dave’s skin breaks out in goosebumps. He closes his eyes and presses up against Dirk’s body, feeling all of a sudden overwhelmingly, disorientingly horny. That’s what makes him pull away.</p>
<p>His stomach is all knots as he waits for Dirk to lodge one of any number of valid complains. ‘Aren’t you dating someone?’ would be a good one, or there’s that well-worn classic, ‘Ectoincest is still incest, bro.’ </p>
<p>Dirk doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t look angry, though.</p>
<p>What Dave really wants to write to all the friends who deserve better than his shitty disappearing act is that sitting here in this apartment feels like being underwater sometimes, as if the whole rest of the world is damped and blurred, insubstantial. It’s the feeling of all those afternoons alone with Bro, trapped in a concrete box with the Texan heat radiating down. Dirk grew up alone too, in the middle of the sea; maybe that’s why some days Dave feels like they’re the only two survivors of a shipwreck, the last living things on earth, bobbing out there somewhere in the open ocean.</p>
<p>He can’t write that, though. They’d think he’d lost his mind.</p>
<p>Dirk might get it, though. Dave shifts a little closer to him. Not saying anything, not even daring to look at him, he listens to the sound of Dirk’s breathing, and together, they watch the rain.</p>
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